Proteinuria and Tooth Pain

Dear Ted, Sawaddhi Ka! Firstly, I hope you are well, and may the blessings of the Universal Light and Lord Buddha be with you for all the help you have given on Earth Clinic.

Now, I wonder whether I could ask your advice. During the last winter here in Japan, I frequently stayed up until the early hours of the morning, sometimes 5 or 6 AM, working under freezing temperatures, and sleeping until 2 PM, or sometimes not sleeping at all. Then about two months ago, I suddenly found I had developed frothy urine which resembles a bowl of soapsuds, and after flushing this away, a mass of albumin is left floating on the water resembling an oil slick from a tanker. Of course, the doctor wanted to start me on ACE and ARB drugs, but my blood pressure is usually around 115/70 with pulse of 60, and my blood sugar is normal, so I am not willing to begin these medications. I am looking for a way to reduce the proteinuria naturally, which is also making my teeth hurt to the bone, especially when they come in contact with cold air, water or fruits. The dentist has not been able to to stop them hurting. I presume the calcium metabolism has gone haywire.

I naturally thought of Chinese and/or Ayurvedic herbs. But I found that in a Chinese herb-based kidney preparation I ordered on the Web, half the herbs were nephrotoxic. I was toying with the idea of going to China to stay in a Red Cross hospital there, and this hospital has sent me some packages of herbs which I am now checking for presence of heavy metals. Another hospital in China specialised in kidney problems proposes using packs of Chinese herbs placed on the back with a heat pad (micro-osmosis), which they say is superior to oral administration, but they also give injections of stem cells, which in one case was reported not only to be ineffective, but also led to kidney cancer. That same hospital is also very proud of their dialysis unit, which does not bode well, and their fees are in the range of $70,000-30,000 US for a short stay which makes it inaccessible to ordinary folk including me. Then there are at least two kidney centres in India, one of which claims to supply herbs free of heavy metals as well as a 70% cure rate, but judging from feedback on the Web, their treatment is not always effective. And I also know an Ayurvedic doctor in Sri Lanka who says he can cure me, although one must remember many herbs in Sri Lanka are contaminated with pyrrolizine alkaloids (PA).

I started taking oral sodium bicarbonate yesterday, and have not noticed any decrease in proteinuria. I plan to continue taking fish oil and prunes to try and restore some of the bone loss in the jaw, maybe I could make it less painful. I asked the visiting nephrologist at our local hospital in Tokyo to perform a kidney ultrasound, but due to my very good GFR, he brushed me off saying it was not necessary.

So I don't know what to do, but I am always interested in anything I can do naturally to reverse this situation. We can obtain supplements from the US, and we have a plentiful supply of black sesame seeds and watermelons! Incidentally, I read somewhere that oral supplementation of arginine leads to reperfusion injury or something like that, so maybe we should stick with the sesame seeds.